Donald Trump’s Wildly Contradictory Foreign Policy Speech in 5 Tweets

membership ticker

Right now is no time to come up short.

It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where the Big Lie is called a Big Lie, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we urgently need to raise about 400,000 by Thursday, June 30, to finish our fiscal year on track and give it everything we possibly can. Please help us get there with a donation if you can right now.

$1,150,000

$1,350,000

Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

Gerald Herbert/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In April, after criticism mounted about his lack of foreign policy proposals and advisers, Donald Trump gave what he billed as a major foreign policy address. It proved to be a confusing speech filled with contradictory ideas and outright falsehoods. But it seems that little has changed since then. Trump’s latest foreign policy speech on Monday in Youngstown, Ohio, was equally filled with head-scratching proposals and statements.

Journalists and foreign policy experts on Twitter quickly pointed out Trump’s baffling comments on everything from major anti-terrorism proposals and the war in Iraq to his opinion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The GOP nominee’s oddest remarks included:

1) Trump’s contention that the United States should have kept Iraq’s oil after the 2003 invasion.

Just to be clear: Trump opposes “nation-building,” but supports using US troops for coerced natural resource extraction.

— Micah Zenko (@MicahZenko) August 15, 2016

2) Trump’s call for human rights—and praise for Middle Eastern dictators.

Trump bashes Obama for not pressing human rights during ’09 Cairo visit. Then vows close partnership with even more repressive Egypt vs ISIS

— Michael Crowley (@michaelcrowley) August 15, 2016

At another point in the speech, Trump also praised the alleged stability of the Middle East in 2009 under repressive rulers including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

3) Trump’s insistence that Obama and Clinton caused Iraq to fall apart by pulling troops out in 2011.

Trump calls Obama/Clinton “reckless” for leaving Iraq. But he also advocated for troops to get out “right now” in 08 pic.twitter.com/SXOWpCpxn5

— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) August 15, 2016

Trump also falsely claimed—again—that he opposed the war in Iraq before it began.

4) Trump’s demands that the United States take actions against ISIS that it’s already taking.

Trump: Keep open GTMO. Renewed emph on HUMINT. Drone strikes.
Obama already doing it: check, check, check.

— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) August 15, 2016

5) Trump’s mockery of Merkel for accepting refugees in Germany.